Loras College Professor Earns Iowa Campus Compact Citizen Award

5/28/2014

Loras College Associate Professor of Social Work, Nancy Zachar Fett, will be honored in early June at this year’s Iowa Campus Compact’s Engaged Campus Awards in Des Moines, for winning the Citizen Award. With over 20 nominations, the selection process was very competitive.

The newly developed Engaged Campus Awards recognize individuals or groups in Iowa higher education for their work toward the Iowa Campus Compact mission of deepening and strengthening campus civic and community engagement. The Citizen Award specifically honors an individual who shows leadership in engaging students as active citizens.

Maggie Baker, service learning coordinator at Loras, nominated Fett for the award. “Nancy was an excellent candidate for this award because she is respected by students and professionals in her field of social work for her passion, drive and tenacity in the pursuit of bringing people together as citizens. She consistently supports others interested in the field of civic engagement by showing them ways to be engaged as active citizens. Nancy inspires her students and professionals by modeling what it means to be committed to social change, particularly in the area of empowerment of individuals living in poverty,” explained Baker.

Additionally, Ann Mauss, associate professor of computing and information technology, was selected to participate in the 2014-2015 Engaged Scholars Faculty Fellows program through Iowa Campus Compact. She will participate in ongoing training and professional development over the course of a year with other faculty from around the state and receive a stipend to support her engaged scholarship. Fellowships are granted to integrate or enhance an academic service-learning course component, a community-based research project, and/or a new community-campus partnership.

Mauss’ project will focus on computer literacy, with a main goal of offering senior citizens throughout Dubuque County opportunities to improve computer literacy skills, in order for them to be able to fully participate in this digital age, which involves students creating and leading training sessions in the area in basic computing skills to these individuals. The project will be carried out in partnership with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach in Dubuque County who identified a need for computer literacy for senior populations through their program, Mid Life & Beyond.

“Inter-generational activities like these computer classes benefit both the seniors and the students and, in this case, we have the added positive outcome of helping seniors be more tech-savvy and connected to their community. Our partnership with Loras College has been instrumental in making this happen,” noted Jason Neises, Dubuque County extension program manager.